and saltier than the ocean, although not as salty as the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
Taking out a rag, First Lieutenant Sheng wiped his mouth. The T-66s were headed for Palm Springs and then LA beyond. Afterward, Sheng hoped to be the first to race onto the Grapevine and over the pass to Bakersfield. They were going to overrun California. That’s what the colonel had told them. They were going to meet up with Navy personnel in Sacramento, crushing any Americans foolish enough to engage the greatest tanks and the greatest army in the world.
Sheng grinned thinking about it, and then he checked a computer. The gauge showed they were in the red, meaning they were almost empty of diesel. He would need more fuel soon. They had been traveling fast for many hours. If the T-66 had a problem, it was a hog-like thirst for fuel. How long until the fuel carriers pulled up?
Dropping down into the interior, Sheng moved to the radio, deciding it was time to find out.
In the late afternoon, Sergeant McGee shut down his Abrams M1A3 Main Battle Tank. He had half a tank of fuel left and wanted to conserve what he had.
In training, the instructors had hammered home the need to conserve fuel. After 2032, with the loss of the Arctic Ocean oil fields and the diminishment of Prudhoe Bay, finding enough oil and gas had become a problem. Extracting oil from shale had provided some of the answer. It proved harder to do on a commercial scale than expected. Synthetic oil from coal produced the rest. Despite this, the American Army seldom had enough fuel and thus everyone conserved wherever he could.
McGee was seven miles outside of Palm Springs, an advance unit of American armor. He was in a swing battalion of the U.S. Tenth Division, the second-to-last reserve formation in LA. The plan was simple enough, as McGee knew about it. Bradley Fighting Vehicles with advanced TOW missiles would engage the Chinese at range, four thousand meters or more. Self-propelled artillery would then hammer the enemy with direct fire of guided projectiles. Old Apache helicopters with advanced Hellfire III missiles would then pop up and try to destroy advancing T-66s, before falling back.
At that point, in the hoped-for confusion, Sergeant McGee and others would turn on their Abrams and attack the enemy flanks. The goal was to get in amongst enemy supply and headquarters vehicles and blow them to Hell. The key vehicles command wanted destroyed were the enemy fuel carriers. They had to stop the Chinese advance to Palm Springs, giving LA time for Central Californian reinforcements.
As he stood in the hatch, Sergeant McGee swallowed uneasily. The rumors coming down were all bad. The Chinese had encircled the fortifications on the border, trapping the bulk of Army Group SoCal. On the coast and a little inland, the enemy was driving up the interstates to LA. But the big right hook that would take out Southern California was coming through the desert past the Salton Sea.
“Sergeant!” his driver yelled up from within the tank.
McGee was resting in the hatch, with a pair of binoculars on his chest. He dipped down inside the tank. “What are you hollering for?”
The driver looked up. “The Chinese, Sarge, they’ve been spotted.”
“Yeah?” McGee asked, trying to sound cool. He was twenty-three years old and was finding that hard to do right now.
“It looks like their advance elements will be in range of the Bradleys soon, maybe in twenty minutes, maybe sooner.”
“T-66s?” McGee asked.
The driver shook his head. “Marauder tanks, Sarge.”
McGee had to turn away from the driver, as the driver looked too scared, and that could be infectious. “We’ll show them.”
“Do you think so?” the driver asked.
“Yeah,” McGee said, looking at the man again.
“They say a whole tank army is coming behind these vehicles. How are we going to face an army of enemy tanks? We’re just a division, Sarge.”
“Yeah, but we’re
The driver blinked so his entire face scrunched up. “I hope you’re right. I don’t want to die out here.”
“No,” McGee said, “neither do I.”
Flight Lieutenant Harris shook his head. He wore VR goggles and sat in his chair in an Air Force bunker. Onscreen, he looked out of his new V-10 UCAV. He flew over the Coachella Valley, hunting for enemy fuel carriers.
What he should be doing was hunting for Chinese amphibious vehicles heading for San Diego. He and the other drone pilots were presently trapped behind enemy lines. It made him nervous. The idea of being shipped overseas to a Chinese POW camp terrified him. The Japanese of World War II, the North Koreans in the 1950s and the Vietnamese during the 60s all had terrible records as prison wardens. Harris didn’t see why the Chinese would be any different.
He shook his head again, trying to drive the idea away. He needed to concentrate on the task. The Chinese were heading for Palm Springs, trying to slip into LA through the side door.
A ping in his ear alerted Harris.
Flipping on a different camera on his V-10, Harris looked down on the white sands below. It showed a billowing dust cloud. He used a thermal scanner. The image told him he could possibly have a fleet of fuel carriers. Unfortunately, air-defense vehicles roared alongside them.
Harris didn’t want to lose another V-10. It would look bad on his record. But he knew this was important, critically so, he’d been told.
He chinned on his radio to the colonel in charge here in the San Diego bunker.
“You see them, sir,” Harris said. “Do I wait for others or—”
“Kill them now, Lieutenant. Don’t waste time. We have to stop the Chinese from refueling their heavies, if they haven’t already done that.”
“Yes, sir,” Harris said.
If he’d been flying an F-35 or a ground-attack plane, the order might have been different. The Air Force didn’t like suicidal pilots. UCAVs changed the rules.
“Here we go,” Harris said to himself, using his joystick thumb-control. He piloted the V-10 down, down, down toward the fuel carriers. As he did, he primed the V-10’s Hellfire III missiles.
From below and hidden in the dust cloud, enemy chain-guns opened up. They were like mini-volcanos and soon he spied eruptions of flames. They were hypnotic if he looked at them too long. He heard a growl in his ear from the threat indicator. The Chinese had radar lock on him. This time it didn’t change a thing. Harris increased speed as he launched Hellfire after Hellfire. Their contrails burned brightly on his screen.
“Come on,” Harris said, trying to get within cannon range.
On his thermal scanner, he saw the first hit. It was a massive explosion. He’d gotten a fuel carrier. Then came another explosion and another. He’d hit pay dirt, this time.
Harris whooped with delight. This would go on his record, too. He was making kills, critical kills.
At the last moment and on his screen, he saw a Chinese SAM barreling up at his craft. He hit a button, expelling chaff. This time it was too late. The SAM destroyed the V-10 and Harris lost his link to the Coachella Valley. He was back to being a pilot without a drone, but at least he was alive and he had helped the Army out there on the white sands facing the enemy sneak attack.
On the flat Highway 99 north of Bakersfield, twenty massive tank carriers hauled twenty Behemoth tanks. It was the whole complement of the experimental vehicles. They were spaced far apart on the highway and moved at a mere fifteen mph. If they tried moving any faster, they would risk blowing tires and tipping over.
Captain Stan Higgins sat in the back of the cab of the fifth hauler. He listened to reports from Tenth Armor Division outside of Palm Springs. They were supposed to delay the Chinese tank advance, giving the reinforcements from Central California time to reach Palm Springs.
Studying the desert terrain of the Coachella Valley, Stan realized it would be the perfect place for the Behemoths—if the tanks worked how they were supposed to, and if they had enough air cover.
